How You Can Fight and Prevent Gambling Addiction
Gambling can be a fun and rewarding activity, but there are also some dangers involved. It’s widely known that vulnerable people can develop gambling addictions and suffer from gambling-related harm. However, there are several things you can do to prevent and combat these issues and the folks at Smartphone Casinos have come forward with a few tips...
Gamstop
Gamstop is a gambling self-exclusion service. It allows you to self-exclude from all gambling websites for a select period of time of your choice, going up to five years. If you believe you’re struggling with a gambling addiction or are developing some other gambling-related harm, it can be a great idea to self-exclude from gambling sites.
You do this by registering your details with Gamstop who then informs casino operators of your self-exclusion. Your accounts will then be paused and you will not be able to login, make deposits and play games at any of your registered online casinos for the period of time you selected (Six months, one year or five years). Once the minimum time period has passed, you will remain self-excluded until you decide to lift the ban.
Transaction Locks
Most banks in the UK now allow you to block gambling transactions. Banks such as Barclays, Natwest, Monzo, HSBC, and more, now allow you to stop all gambling transactions with your bank. Most of the banks that implement this feature allow you to enable it within your smartphone’s banking mobile app. Enabling the feature prevents your card and bank from being used to deposit money and place bets. If you try to use it on a gambling website, the transaction will automatically fail.
Locking your gambling transactions is a great way of stopping you from gambling. Although self-exclusion via Gamstop is great, it can be easy to make an entirely new account and gamble through that. But these transaction locks ban you completely, and even after disabling them it’ll take a few days before you’re ready to use your cards and bank. This gives you additional time to ensure you’re making the correct choice.
Limit Your Time, Spending and Losses
Most online casinos have limitations you can use to crackdown on the time you spend gambling, the money you spend gambling, and your overall losses. Websites such as Videoslots allow you to implement these restrictions and once you go over them, you’ll be locked out of your account for a select period of time.
For example, if you implement a daily £10 deposit limit, after depositing that £10 you will not be allowed to deposit until the next day. This works similarly for losses and time, and you’ll be given reminders too, which helps greatly.
Lock Your Withdrawals
One major problem many gamers have when gambling is losing their withdrawals. Many online casinos have slow or long processing times for withdrawals, and when gamblers get bored they sometimes reverse or cancel these withdrawals to then gamble their winnings away. This can clearly lead to problematic behaviour.
However, some online casinos such as PlayFrank and Rizk, allow you to lock withdrawals. This prevents you or customer support from reversing these withdrawals and focus them to be paid out into your account. This means there’s no risk of you losing your winnings, which is great.
So if you believe you’re developing gambling-related harm, or are just worried about potentially developing an addiction, it may be a good idea to use some of the services or tips we’ve explained above.